The Heart of Time
by HelloStoneHenge
Summary: The Doctor's Tardis dies, leaving him stranded alone on Earth until he meets Lucy- a girl who, for some reason, brings the dead Tardis back to life. Soon, both are forced to run together from Angels, the Sparrow, and various other monsters.


It was well past midnight. The city below was asleep, except for a few people running about. From this high, they looked rather like bats- small and hovering near each other but never too near.  
The girl watching from her roof smiled watching them, thinking they were almost cute. Her smile made her seem prettier. It made her eyes crinkle and narrow, robbing her of her innocence. It showed her teeth, a little crooked but still white. It brought color to her pale cheeks and gave contrast against her dark hair.  
Not that Lucy cared much for looks.  
Her eyes picked at the night, plucking from it everything that wasnt right. They saw the blue telephone box before the sound had even reached her ears. Saw the man come out, a bit dishevelled but still intact.  
Lucy bit her lip watching, getting to her feet to look better.  
A crack sounded behind her followed by something close to a scream, only her ears didnt hear it. it echoed in her mind, like a girl screaming for help over and over. Her foot slipped on the tiles of the roof and Lucy fell, barely catching the edge with her fingertips, trying not to think of the eleven story drop below.  
"Oh, holy..."  
Above her, something moved. Drop the eleven stories and hope it didn't kill her or face whatever was above her? She was just about to make that decision when his face popped over the ledge. "Well, come on up. I took care of it."  
His hair hung almost in his eyes, messy and choppy. She took his hand, scrabbling at the stone as he dragged her up. "Well, let's take a look at you." He huffed as soon as she was relatively safe.  
Lucy let him, her own gaze taking in his. He had blue eyes and a smile she thought shed seen before.  
"I've been waiting forever!"  
The words were breathy and gasped, Lucy's face flushed with an excitement she didn't understand. For a moment, the man looked at her like she was insane, and then his fingertips turned her face this way and that. "Do I know you?" He finally asked, one eyebrow cocked up.  
Lucy thought, 'Yes!' but didn't understand it so she settled for a confused, 'No.'  
He didn't look like he believed her.  
"Alright then..." He turned and started walking away, shoes clacking against the roof. Watching him walk away hurt.  
She felt she could almost place who he was, though she swore she'd never seen him before in her life. She let him go, watching him disappear across the rooftops. She waited there until dawn before retreating back to her room, taking with her a chunk of stone from the rooftop. It had been there, just behind her, as if a statue had burst from the door and then been blown to pieces.  
To her, it felt beautiful and dark and just a little dangerous.  
Like him.  
It was given a place of honor on her shelf, alone. The second night it sat there, she upended a glass bowl over it and weighted it down with as many heavy books as she could find.  
The hunk of stone was a hand, and she could have sworn it moved when she stopped looking at it.  
But that was impossible, right?  
Lucy wasn't sure anymore- hence the bowl.  
Three nights later, she returned from the rooftop to find the bowl shattered on the floor and the hand missing. Something deep in her gut told Lucy it hadn't been a robber. She tried telling herself she was wrong and couldn't. 'An angel.' The words came from nowhere in her mind. Fear followed it, a coldness spreading up her spine. She turned and bolted to the roof, pacing there in the light of dawn.  
"Lucy, come on."  
A bpoy called from the doorway, spanish skin catching the light. Dark hair, brown eyes, and a rather wolfish grin completed the look. Lucy tried to smile at him and failed.  
"Lucy?" She heard the worry in his voice.  
She shook her head, trying to clear it, and went over close enough to put her hand on his arm. "It's nothing. I just... Thought I saw something, RJ."  
RJ looked at her funny andleaned in close. "Are you still taking your meds?"  
She hadn't taken those meds since she was a kid and mentioning them not made her flush red with embarassment.  
"Yes!"  
It was an outright lie, but her tone convinced him. He must have figured she'd never sound so angry over it if she'd been skipping doses. She led the way off the roof before he could ask any more questions that would make her feel crazy.  
She spent the day following him around town, trying to keep her mindoff of statues that moved and dreams that made no sense and strangers that saved her and left her feeling confused and broken.  
Rj tried to drag her into a pub, tried to tell hera drink or two would do her wonders. She told him to go on ahead and turned to go home alone. Two blocks had passed with her in her own world before she saw him.  
The same man, in silloughette, standing at the corner outside a blue box that was dark and dead.  
Even lit up by a lamp, a cold chill swept through her.  
"Professor! Sage! Father!" Her voice carried a little, sounding louder than it needed to be. He almost turned but didn't, too absorbed in his inspection of the box.  
Lucy tried again.  
"Nurse! No, no. That's not right... Doctor!"  
He did stop that time, and he slowly turned. Her mouth felt dry, waiting for him to come back.  
"I never introduced myself."  
She was smiling, pleased with herself. It took her a moment to figure out that he didn't count this as a good thing.  
"Oh! I don't know... I just knew. It was just there." She floundered, blushing brighter and trying to make him stop staring at her like that, for God's sake!  
Lucy crept closer, her eyes on the Tardis. She needed for feel it, to know why she felt it calling. Her fingertips touched the door and she sighed, both in pleasure and a deep pain.  
"What is it?" He asked, grabbing the handle around her hand and pulling it open for her.  
"It's so sad now..." She whispered, peering into the dark Tardis. Not a light was on. There was no humming or groaning or grinding or wheezing. Just silence and darkness.  
"It died." The Doctor told her softly. She ran her hand along the doorframe, just on the inside. "But it's not dead. It's just empty."  
Her words stunned him. She walked in and a low hum was heard. He followed, hesitantly, shutting the door behind him.  
"Well?" He asked expectantly, as she wandered through the Tardis. Each step she took lit up, each corridor lighting as she approached it. As her fingers brushed the panel, it came back to life, too. "It's beautiful." She told him, her voice hushed.  
"It's... Bigger." He tried to prompt her, his eyebrows raised. She shook her head. "It's exactly how it should be."  
Lucy had never felt more at home in her life than she did here, with cold metal beneath her fingertips and buttons beneath her palms. She turned to him almost expectantly. "So, where are we going?"  
He shook his head at her question, his expression causing doubt to flicker over her face. "We aren't going anywhere. I told you- she's dead."  
Lucy shook her head, pulling a knob and hearing the console groan.  
"She's not dead, not anymore."  
He closed the distance fast, his eyes ablaze. His hands gripped the control panel on either side of her, his body pushing hers against the console.  
"And why is that? Why is it that when you set foot in my Tardis, she lights up? Why is it that she's not 'bigger on the inside' to you, but 'just as she should be'? have you been my companion before?"  
She ducked his arm and spun away. He followed. Lucy kept out of his reach, trying to studder out her answers. "I don't know! I don't know why, but she likes me. I can feel it. It's like coming home. She's not bigger on the inside or smaller on the outside- she's... She's... I don't know. I don't, really. No, I've never seen you before with these eyes. Never."  
He followed her in her bizarre dance around the control panel, keeping pace, listening. He stopped at the last line, ideas buzzing through this brain. "Fine. Now get out."  
She froze, right in front of the doors. The light silloughetted her in her dress, the blues turning the red of her dress marroon. He thought it looked like blood in the light.  
"No."  
He raised an eyebrow at her defiance. He walked past her, opening the door. "Now, Lucy."  
She crossed her arms and turned to face him. Behind her, the lights of the console flared their protest.  
"No. I'm not going. I like it here. I wanna run, too. Why do you take everyone but me?!"  
Her voice was high and shrill, her eyes unfocused in a way he hadn't seen before. "Because... Because I don't like you. I don't like having companions, I don't need a companion, and I'm NOT taking in any more strays!" He yelled at her louder with each word. She seemed to shrink, and for a moment orange and blues flecked her eyes. He was watching, and he was lieing. She was interesting- more interesting than any companion he'd had since Clara.  
"Fine." She held her head high and walked past him, and he got to watch the lights of the Tardis flicker and die with each step she took, until the doors shut softly behind her and he was left in darkness.  
The walk home was excruciating for Lucy. His words kept playing in her head, and she could hear every false note in them. She almost didn't recognize RJ when she stumbled up to him. He was drinking, lightly, and nowhere near drunk- sipping a beer on the corner, apparently waiting for someone.  
"She ditched you."  
Lucy told him calmly, sadly, gesturing to the alley RJ's date had recently disappeared into. "How do you..." He turned and stared down the alley while Lucy continued home. "Lucy! Where were you? I went back to your apartment to get you and you weren't there." RJ was tailing her, trying to catch her. She craned her neck up, trying to see the stars past the lights of the city.  
"Oh, I was meeting someone. I was gonna run off with him but he's not taking in stays anymore." She scoffed as he said it, RJ shaking his head already. "You've been delirious in some alley somewhere-"  
"The Doctor'll be back. He's wrong. I'm not a stray. I'm not."  
Above them, the streetlight cracked with a hiss. RJ froze. Her eyes were shot through with orange and blue. She was angry, but a quiet anger. He wanted to put a hand on her arm but he'd seen her do crazy things before.  
He remembered when she'd run into his house yelling that her parents were gone and all she had now was her Granny.  
Her parents had never been- as far as he knew they disappeared when she was a baby. She'd changed since then, like she turned into a whole new person that night.  
The psychiatrists said she'd had a nervous breakdown when the shock of losing her parents had passed.  
RJ called bullshit.  
Lucy had kept her story up until about five years ago, when she'd started muttering an assent to anything anyone suggested.  
But strange things still happened around her. Lights burned out and cars died. His laptop had fried all by itself the first day she'd touched it.  
"Lucy, please..." RJ whispered behind her. She shook her head and started walking again, muttering apologies that did nothing to ease the feeling in RJ's gut.

She awoke to a sight she would never forget. A statue was poised over her, bending down. It was one of a young woman, with wide staring eyes and long curly hair in what looked like a greek dress, all of carved stone. Lucy knew what it was the moment she saw it. She screamed as she backpedaled off the bed, running for the door only to find it wouldn't open. Her back slammed the wood just as her eyes focused again on the angel, stopping it mere inches away from her. "No, no, no, no... Let me out!"  
Lucy screeched, clawing at the door. She heard the inner lock click, felt it give, and knew it shouldn't be possible even as her mind was running through pictures of how the lock clicked open and her ears filled with a high-pitched humming.  
She dodged around the man behind the door, hardly noticing who it was. A moment later, he was pulling her away. "Come on, it's right behind us." He hissed in her ear. She let him drag her down two blocks, an alley, a side street, two intersections, and finally into a hotel lobby before she realized who it was. "You've got some nerve." She snarled, jerking her arm out of his grip. "Is now really the time?" He demanded, trying to lead her over to the Tardis. Lucy crossed her arms over her chest and stubbornly refused to budge. "It's a perfect time!" He groaned and spun to face her again, trying to pull and push her now. "No, it's not. The angels are coming. They want you. I don't know why yet but I'm starting to have a good idea-"  
"Well, at least someone wants me!" Lucy interrupted, sarcasm drenching her voice. He groaned louder, letting her go and running for the box himself. Lucy turned to the door to leave and froze. An angel stood there, stony hands grasping the door frame. Eyes wide, staring at her and smiling it's stony smile.  
Lucy didn't dare blink. She thought she heard something, a whispering in her mind that strung together into a singing.  
It was strange and beautiful and spoke to her of times and places she'd never seen yet still knew.  
"Lucy..."  
Her name sounded distant.  
She blinked and the angel came closer, one hand reaching. Lucy smiled and reached back- and felt herself moving backwards, being pulled. She screamed her protest, tearing at the hands that pulled her, wrenching herself free of them just as the man they belonged to turned, getting between her and the angel. "No! You can not have her!" Lucy smiled as he yelled, the singing getting stronger until her mouth opened and the Angel's words came out.  
"And why not? She is not yours. You do not want her."  
The voice echoed as it came out. He jumped and almost turned to face Lucy, almost took his eyes off the angel.  
"I never said I wanted her. I said you can't have her." He figured it was worth a try, even if it amounted to nothing. Behind him, Lucy laughed in the Angel's echoed voice. "If you do not want her, you have no rights to tell us we can not have her. Move, Raggedy Man. Give her to me."  
"Let me think on that a moment." He moved as he said it, grasping her shoulders. Once he was behind Lucy, he smiled. "I've thought about it, and the answer's no. You can't have her."  
He pulled her toward the Tardis and stubbornly pushed her inside, despite the fact that she didn't help him at all. He didn't seem to mind. He shut the doors and locked them and turned to her, completely upset now. "What ARE you?! You come in here, give life to a dead Tardis, the Angels love you, they WANT you, and still, STILL, you insist that I'm- what? Someone you know? A hero? A savior? Your pet turtle from second grade?!"  
Lucy was shaking her head before he even finished. "No, just a man running with a box." Lucy said, grinning wide. He stared at her a minute then slowly smiled. "Yes, you're right. I am a madman with a box- but what does that make you? My companion, one I left behind? My wife- maybe a younger regeneration?"  
Lucy shook her head and he gave up guessing apparently. "Well, taking you home is a bad idea, taking you with me is a worse one, and anywhere I put you, they'll find you. So what am I to do with you?"  
Lucy tilted her head slowly, watching him talk to himself. Her eyes became distant- he could see her leaving them as the Tardis became brighter.  
"Oh, I don't know. The same as always, I guess."  
He watched from the panel, head tilted slightly.  
"Oh, alright! You can come! But just for this one time, and just to stop the Angels so you can be safe- and maybe so I can find out why she works for you."  
Lucy watched but said nothing. The Tardis disappeared from it's spot just as it pitched to one side. "Oh, you brilliant girl!" The Doctor chimed, beaming as he circled the control panel. "She's never done that before- driven on her own. Never! I like it! It's brilliant- oh, isn't she wonderful?!"  
Lucy smiled, her smile more than a little hollow. "Sure, brilliant." She laughed a little, a sound he turned to stare at suspiciously. "Come on." He called, halfway to the door, grabbing his jacket at he went. "Where are we going?" She demanded, following after him. He grinned a very dark grin, the door swinging wide open. "Why, we're taking you to the Angels of course. I've reconsidered. They can have you."  
She almost ran. She wanted to run. She wanted to run back to the blue box and go home- but something held her back.  
'The Doctor Lies.'  
The words just came to her. She steeled her shoulders and kept following him, trying to ignore his look of surprise.  
Lucy didn't know where they were- a world of stone, it looked like. An underground world of stone, as beautiful as it was terrifying with staircases that spiralled up too high to see, floors suspended over nothing, and statues that moved when you blinked. "Right, now, where were we?"  
In moments, both of them were surrounded by Angels. Stone gargoyles, stone hounds, stone statues... They all gathered, and they all reached. Lucy pressed her back against the Doctor's, staring at every one she could see. He kept his eyes open wide, too. "Yes, I think you wanted her. Well, I brought her- here, to your home, and do you know why?" He grinned as he said it, pulling out his screwdriver. The angels said nothing, though Lucy could hear the singing.  
"Eh, eh, no- bad angel!" He sonicced her head, drowning out the singing. Breaking the connection. She swayed but stayed on her feet. "Because now she's seen where you're all from. She's seen the home of the angels- the place you all have spent so very long wanting to take her- at least if my guesses are right- oh, and look at that! You have a new Queen! How lovely- pity she's not here. I'd love to have let her see Lucy- oh but I bet you lot would hate that, letting something so dangerous get to close to your Queen." His grin looked much darker, much grimmer, as he stepped foreward. "Cause now she's seen your home- and you and I both know she's strong, powerful, clever. Brilliant even- and now she knows just where to hit you where it hurts, and I can't control her. So go on. Make that connection again- link her to your entire world. Teach her the Angels' song. I'll sit here and watch while you burn."  
It started again and he didn't stop it- instead he sat on a stone ledge barely two feet away. From the corners of her eyes, Lucy could see grey forms moving like liquid stone, surrounding her in the blink of an eye. Her mouth moved without her consent, without her knowledge.  
"Why do you surrender?"  
Her voice echoed again, one of the statues staring at the Doctor.  
The one Angel that held back from the feast.  
"Because whatever she is, she's not human- no human can link thoughts with an angel. The Tardis responds to her- and you lot love her. I think I have an idea of what she might be, and if I'm right that link your forging will destroy you. All of you."  
He blinked, and the one angel stepped back. Lucy's lips moved with the words of a hundred angels, each one stifling the sound of the others.  
Her mouth opened in a scream as the hundreds of statues stopped, goldren cracks racing across them seconds before they shattered around her.  
He stared, his mouth open wide. "Alright. I wasn't expecting that. What did you use for that- time energy?! What /are/ you?!" He demanded, soniccing each piece of statue on his way to Lucy. Lucy smiled at him, her palm resting on his cheek.  
"Goodbye. The Dance is over now."  
She collapsed as she said it, caught by the Doctor as he tried to fit the pieces together.  
"Goodbye? Goodbye? What's that supposed to mean then?! she's not dieing..." He ran with her to the Tardis, wrenched the doors open, and set her down on the floor of the control room. A lever and a button and they were going home. "Dance- what dance?" He was still muttering to himself, even as he knelt by her with his screwdriver. "Impossible! That much time energy should kill a herd of Wrackers!" He muttered, flipping the screwdriver off and darting through the Tardis, grabbing cups and leaves and tiny jaws of mysterious liquids.  
"I've got to wake her up." He started mixing them- water in the cup, leaves to brew tea, a few drops of something pink- then yellow- then green- then purple- then a smoky black.  
He knelt again by Lucy's head, feeling for her pulse and cursing to himself. "No. No, this isn't goodbye. Don't you let this be goodbye!"  
Her organs were failing slowly, eaten at by the sudden release of all that energy.  
He made her drink the concoction, no matter how many times she choked and spluttered, hoping it would be enough to save her.  
The Tardis landed, grinding and groaning and wheezing- and Lucy laid there, breathing and pale, while the Doctor tried to save her.


End file.
